Dona Ana County Clerk Lynn Ellins talks with Thom Hinks and Richard Sunman (far right) after they obtained a marriage license at the Dona Ana County Clerk's Office in Las Cruces, N.M. In August, Ellins' office began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples for the first time in the state's history.
Juan Carlos Llorca/AP
Dona Ana County Clerk Lynn Ellins talks with Thom Hinks and Richard Sunman (far right) after they obtained a marriage license at the Dona Ana County Clerk's Office in Las Cruces, N.M. In August, Ellins' office began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples for the first time in the state's history.
Juan Carlos Llorca/AP
New Mexico law doesn't explicitly ban or approve same-sex marriage. There were a spate of lawsuits seeking to clarify the issue, but they were tied up in the courts. Then in August, the clerk of Dona Ana County, Lynn Ellins, a long-time supporter of same-sex marriage, consulted his staff.
"And we all agreed that it was about time to bring this thing to a head, and if we did nothing, the cases would languish in the district court if we did not move to issue these licenses and try and put the ball in play," Ellins says.
Soon state judges ordered four other county clerks to follow Ellins' lead and together they have issued more than 900 marriage licenses. But not every county clerk was prepared to do the same in their communities. Instead, all 33 county clerks in New Mexico agreed to petition the state Supreme Court for a final say on the matter. The main opposition comes from a group of Republican lawmakers led by state Sen. William Sharer of Farmington.
"So when Lynn Ellins decided that he was the only one in New Mexico that could properly read the law and declared that same-sex marriage was legal, I stepped in and said, 'No, you're wrong. We must stop this,' Sharer says, adding that Ellins "far exceeded his authority."
But the reaction from other quarters has been relatively mild. New Mexico's three Catholic bishops said the action of the county clerks should be resolved by the Legislature. And Republican Gov. Susana Martinez has said the issue should be determined by the voters.
But supporters of same-sex marriage say local polls indicate that New Mexicans are prepared to accept a state Supreme Court ruling confirming marriage equality. They are also encouraged by what's happened in New Jersey, says Elizabeth Gill of the ACLU.
"It's yet another court that has analyzed whether there's any real reason to discriminate against same-sex couples in marriage and concluded that there is not," she says.
Gill and others say their side has momentum.
In Oregon last week, state authorities said they would recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Advocates are trying to get a freedom-to-marry initiative on Oregon's ballot in November 2014.
In Illinois, a same-sex marriage bill awaits action by the lower House.
In Pennsylvania, a federal lawsuit challenging that state's same-sex marriage ban is in the courts, and there's a marriage equality bill before the Legislature.
In Hawaii, a special legislative session has been called for later this month to consider a marriage bill.
And in Tennessee, there's a lawsuit challenging both state law and a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
Sara Warbelow, a spokeswoman for the D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign, says in some states it appears marriage equality is inevitable.
"There's been a fair amount of polling, and rather consistently, 80 percent of the American public says within the next 10 years, marriage equality will be the law of the land," Warbelow says.
Back in New Mexico, the Supreme Court justices have taken the unusual step of expanding oral arguments Wednesday from 20 minutes to one hour for each side. They have not indicated when they will issue their decision. In the meantime the court is allowing marriages to continue.
This time five weeks ago, markets were ready and waiting for the Federal Reserve to begin its "taper," the beginning of the end of its program of pumping billions of dollars into the economy by buying bonds.
Not only did Fed leaders elect to sit on their hands at that meeting; now the smart money thinks they won't even start to slow their bond buying until this coming spring! That's all the more remarkable given that there has been no radical shift in the tenor of economic data, just a series of mild disappointments, of which the September jobs report issued Tuesday morning was the latest example.
A near twin to the Editors' Choice Brother MFC-J6920DW , the Brother MFC-J6720DW is also aimed at micro and small offices that need to print and scan at tabloid size (11 by 17 inches and the ISO A3 equivalent). There are at least three differences between the two, but the key difference is that, unlike its more expensive sibling, the MFC-J6720DW can't scan both sides of a page. The most likely reason you might prefer it that you don't need the duplex (two-sided) scanning.
The two other main differences between the two multifunction printer (MFP) models are that the MFC-J6720DW doesn't support NFC (near-field communications), and it offers a smaller touch screen for giving commands from its front panel.
NFC makes printing from or scanning to a smartphone or tablet far more convenient by making it easy to establish a connection. However, not all phones and tablets support NFC (notably iThings), and if your mobile device doesn't offer it, having it in the printer doesn't do any good. If you don't need duplex scanning, and don't need NFC, that makes the MFC-J6720DW the much more likely candidate. The smaller touch screen, at 2.7, rather than 3.7, inches also makes giving commands a little less convenient, but it would be hard to justify buying the more expensive printer just for the touch screen.
Paper Handling and Other Basics As with the Brother MFC-J6920DW, the MFC-J6720DW's paper handling is the main reason to choose it over models that are limited to letter-size paper.
For printing, you can set either of both of its two 250-sheet paper drawers for up to tabloid-size paper. That gives you the option of loading 500 tabloid-size sheets at once, or 250 letter-size sheets and 250 tabloid-size sheets, so you can switch between paper sizes easily. You can also use the one-sheet manual feed to print on other paper stock without having to swap out paper in the tray, and the automatic print duplexer lets you print on both sides of a page.
As already mentioned, you can't scan in duplex. However, both the flatbed and 35-sheet automatic document feeder can handle up to tabloid size, which is more than most MFPs can manage.
Beyond that, the MFC-J6720DW delivers lots of MFP features. It can print and fax from, as well as scan to your PC, including over a network; work as a standalone fax machine and copier; print directly from PictBridge cameras; and both print from and scan to memory cards and USB memory keys. It also offers Web-connected features that let you print from and scan to an assortment of online services, including Evernote, Dropbox, Box, Facebook, and more.
Mobile printing and scanning support includes printing through the cloud and both printing from and scanning to a smartphone or tablet over a Wi-Fi connection. And because the connection choices include Wi-Fi Direct along with Wi-Fi and Ethernet, you can print from or scan to a smartphone or tablet even if the printer isn't on a network with an access point.
Setup, Speed and Output Quality Setup is typical for an inkjet. For my tests I connected the printer to a network using its Ethernet port and installed the drivers on a Windows Vista system.
Print speed is a definitive plus. On our business applications suite (timed with QualityLogic's hardware and software), I clocked the printer at 5.6 pages per minute (ppm), which counts as a tie with the MFC-J6920DW at 5.5 ppm. (The actual difference is only two seconds, with one rounded up and one rounded down.)
As another point of reference, both of the current generation printers are significantly faster than the 4.1 ppm speed for Brother's last generation Brother MFC-J6710DW, which is still available at this writing, and which the MFC-J6920DW replaced as Editors' Choice. Photo speed was also fast, at 52 seconds for a 4 by 6.
Not surprisingly, given the similarities between the two printers, the MFC-J6720DW also delivers the same output quality as the Brother MFC-J6920DW, with better-looking text than most inkjet MFPs, but not quite as good-looking graphics and photos. Text quality in my tests was near the high end of the range for inkjet MFPs, which easily makes it good enough for most business use.
Graphics output was a touch below par. That still makes it good enough for any internal business use, but depending on how much of a perfectionist you are, you may or may not consider it good enough for PowerPoint handouts or the like. Photos on photo paper were higher quality than most businesses need, but at the low end of what you would expect from drugstore prints.
If you need a tabloid-size MFP with duplex scanning, NFC support, or both, the Brother MFC-J6920DW is the obvious choice. If you don't need either the duplexing or NFC, however, the Brother MFC-J6720DW offers all the same capabilities otherwise, and it costs less too. The combination can easily be enough to make it your preferred choice.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, director Julie Taymor and actor Mark Rylance gathered Tuesday in Brooklyn to help cut the ribbon for a jewel box-sized, shiny new theater, the first permanent home for Theatre for a New Audience in its 34 year existence.
It is the city's first new theater designed expressly for Shakespeare and classic drama since 1965, and is the first permanent home for the itinerant company, which was founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz. He estimates it will attract an audience of between 30,000-to-40,000, many public school children.
"Friends, Romans, Brooklynites," the mayor intoned inside the $69 million theater, which was created with public and private pledges. "Lend me your ears. We come not to praise Shakespeare, but to stage him."
In addition to a 299-seat main theater, the 27,500-square-foot company's home also houses a 50-seat rehearsal space and a lobby cafe. It overlooks a new public garden plaza and sits along a walking path between the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Opera House and Harvey Theater. The city pledged some $34 million to the project.
Designed by Hugh Hardy of H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, the new theater has a large glass facade, gunmetal gray panels, a 35-foot-tall main stage, a second-floor lobby and a central staircase. The building went up in a former parking lot and has been named the Polonsky Shakespeare Center after a gift from the Polonsky Foundation.
The new theater boasts an ability to morph into seven different stage and seating configurations. Hardy said building it posed an interesting challenge: "How do you make a small building important?" The answer was to tilt the square structure and help it stand out by using glass and shiny metal.
"I can imagine a child coming in here and saying, 'Yeah, but it's empty. It's got nothing in it,'" said Rylance, the two-time Tony Award-winning English actor who is alternating between starring in "Twelfth Night" and "Richard III" on Broadway. "It's wonderful for plays. It doesn't have a character that forces itself on you. It's a neutral space that is waiting for the words of the actors to fill it."
Taymor, of "The Lion King" and "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" fame, has accepted the theater's invitation to direct the official 2013 inaugural production, "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Taymor has already directed four plays for the troupe, including Carlo Gozzi's "The Green Bird," which moved to Broadway in 2000.
Taymor has already been hard at work getting "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and her cast of 36 ready for its Nov. 2 opening. "I've been in the dark. Oh, I shouldn't have said that," she joked, referring to her rocky ride with the comic book musical.
"I love being here. It's the perfect play to open this theater because it is a blessing of the house," she said. "The theater is flexible and it's small and intimate. How many times do you get a space that's dedicated to that and dedicated to experimentation?"
___
Online:
http://www.tfana.org
___
Follow Mark Kennedy on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits
Contact: Chukuka Enwemeka enwemeka@uwm.edu 41-412-294-712 University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
UWM researchers help reveal how specific wavelengths of light can heal
Multiple sclerosis (MS) causes progressive paralysis by destroying nerve cells and the spinal cord. It interrupts vision, balance and even thinking.
On a suggestion from a colleague, Jeri-Anne Lyons decided to test how the disease responded to a radical therapy exposure to a certain wavelength of light called near-infrared (NIR).
"Never in a million years did I think it would help," says Lyons, an associate professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), who studies the role of the immune response in MS.
But it did. In rodent models, early MS-like symptoms were treated with exposure to NIR light for a week, alternating with a week of no light. The clinical condition of the mice improved.
Professor Janis Eells, who shared the idea with Lyons, had the same initial reaction after she used NIR therapy on rats to treat blindness caused by poisoning, a condition thought to be permanent. Repeating experiments again and again, she found that certain doses of NIR light allowed lab animals to regain their sight.
Scientists have known for years that certain wavelengths of light in certain doses can heal, but they are only now uncovering exactly how it works, thanks in large part to three UWM faculty researchers, including Chukuka S. Enwemeka, dean of UWM's College of Health Sciences who is internationally known for his work in phototherapy.
Enwemeka researches the effects of both NIR and blue light in the visible range on healing wounds. Among his discoveries is that some wavelengths of blue light can clear stubborn infections even MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant "superbug" form of Staphylococcus aureus.
Together, the UWM cluster has found that NIR and blue light repair tissue in dramatically different ways, but both act on the same enzyme in the cell's energy supply center: the mitochondria.
The studies have revealed key information about managing the effects of aging and disease.
A bodyguard
So how is light accomplishing such wonders?
In applying NIR light therapy to MS, Lyons has identified the right timing and dose. But she's also dug deeper, analyzing the effect the light had on the activities of the animal's genes. It turns out, molecules that would make the disease worse were weakened after exposure to the light, and the ones responsible for improvement were strengthened.
Eells says NIR light acts on the mitochondria and a particular enzyme, cytochrome C oxidase, to stimulate cell repair.
Light can do all that?
"We're not talking about white light [all wavelengths in the visible spectrum combined] as treatment, but only certain wavelengths, at a certain intensity, for a certain amount of time," says Lyons. "Like ingested medication, it's all about the dose."
Determining the best wavelength of light for phototherapy is a difficult task. Studies show that 670 nanometer (nm) and 830 nm light are beneficial, but 730 nm is not. The other difficult task is determining the appropriate dose and dose regimen for delivering the light.
Promising leads
Even more exciting is phototherapy's potential to improve a host of other degenerative diseases. Damaged mitochondria lead to a rise in destructive "free radicals," which play a key role in aging and cancer.
"It's why we try to put antioxidants into our diets," says Lyons, "to fight that process."
One source of free radicals comes from the inflammation caused by the body's immune response. The researchers have found that after an injury or illness triggers the immune response, NIR light resets the mitochondria so they function normally again.
"NIR reduces inflammation," says Eells. "If you can tone down the inflammation in an eye disease like retinitis pigmentosa, you slow the progression of the disease."
A similar observation with inflammation occurred in a study on recalcitrant bedsores, she adds. Wounds treated with phototherapy healed two and a half times more quickly than untreated wounds.
"Chronic non-healing wounds are 'stuck' in the inflammatory phase of wound healing" The light removes that obstacle," says Eells.
She has been working with Tim Kern at Case Western Reserve in treating an animal model of diabetic retinopathy with NIR light, which has been shown to slow progression and reduce the severity of the condition. Kern hopes to initiate a clinical trial in the near future.
A killer
NIR light heals by ensuring that cytochrome oxidase binds with oxygen to turn on protectors and stimulate cell metabolism. Blue light, on the other hand, causes a toxic environment when the immune response has been triggered. That poisonous effect hastens healing of topical wounds by killing bacteria that cause infection.
The question is, "What gives light in the longer wavelength its antibiotic effect?"
Enwemeka's studies suggest that blue light also acts on the mitochondrial enzyme site, but allows cytochrome oxidase to bind with nitric oxide, a free radical that is elevated in the immune response. It's a pairing that poisons the invader.
This theory is still unproven, but the therapy has achieved undeniable results in the lab with antibiotic-resistant MRSA. Enwemeka demonstrated that one dose of irradiation killed as much as 92 percent of two pervasive strains of MRSA.
He is working to improve that success rate by getting the light to penetrate deeper in order to finish off the few colonies that survive irradiation.
Limited availability
Enwemeka is leading a research effort in Brazil and at UWM that he hopes will ultimately lead to clinical use of NIR and blue light in the U.S. for the treatment of wounds.
In the six years since he was asked to test the effects of blue light on MRSA, he says, research on the topic has picked up. But currently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not sanctioned the use of blue light in treating wounds, or NIR light for conditions other than wounds and pain.
With so much success, why isn't phototherapy being used more widely?
"It's considered alternative therapy in Western medicine. It seems too simple for people to accept," says Lyons.
What the FDA is waiting for, says Enwemeka, is confirmation from a large-scale clinical study before approving phototherapy for a wider variety of ailments. It's something Enwemeka and Harry Whelan, a UWM alumnus and physician-researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin, are determined to accomplish.
"To see people who have not had relief see their wounds heal and not return," says Enwemeka of the Brazilian patients who have benefited from therapy, "is very touching."
###
Additional study: Photobiomodulation Induced by 670 nm Light Ameliorates MOG35-55 Induced EAE in Female C57BL/6 Mice: A Role for Remediation of Nitrosative Stress
KA Muili, S Gopalakrishnan, JT Eells, JA Lyons
PLoS ONE 8(6): e67358. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0067358 [2013]
[
| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Light as medicine?
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
21-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
]
Share
Contact: Chukuka Enwemeka enwemeka@uwm.edu 41-412-294-712 University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
UWM researchers help reveal how specific wavelengths of light can heal
Multiple sclerosis (MS) causes progressive paralysis by destroying nerve cells and the spinal cord. It interrupts vision, balance and even thinking.
On a suggestion from a colleague, Jeri-Anne Lyons decided to test how the disease responded to a radical therapy exposure to a certain wavelength of light called near-infrared (NIR).
"Never in a million years did I think it would help," says Lyons, an associate professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), who studies the role of the immune response in MS.
But it did. In rodent models, early MS-like symptoms were treated with exposure to NIR light for a week, alternating with a week of no light. The clinical condition of the mice improved.
Professor Janis Eells, who shared the idea with Lyons, had the same initial reaction after she used NIR therapy on rats to treat blindness caused by poisoning, a condition thought to be permanent. Repeating experiments again and again, she found that certain doses of NIR light allowed lab animals to regain their sight.
Scientists have known for years that certain wavelengths of light in certain doses can heal, but they are only now uncovering exactly how it works, thanks in large part to three UWM faculty researchers, including Chukuka S. Enwemeka, dean of UWM's College of Health Sciences who is internationally known for his work in phototherapy.
Enwemeka researches the effects of both NIR and blue light in the visible range on healing wounds. Among his discoveries is that some wavelengths of blue light can clear stubborn infections even MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant "superbug" form of Staphylococcus aureus.
Together, the UWM cluster has found that NIR and blue light repair tissue in dramatically different ways, but both act on the same enzyme in the cell's energy supply center: the mitochondria.
The studies have revealed key information about managing the effects of aging and disease.
A bodyguard
So how is light accomplishing such wonders?
In applying NIR light therapy to MS, Lyons has identified the right timing and dose. But she's also dug deeper, analyzing the effect the light had on the activities of the animal's genes. It turns out, molecules that would make the disease worse were weakened after exposure to the light, and the ones responsible for improvement were strengthened.
Eells says NIR light acts on the mitochondria and a particular enzyme, cytochrome C oxidase, to stimulate cell repair.
Light can do all that?
"We're not talking about white light [all wavelengths in the visible spectrum combined] as treatment, but only certain wavelengths, at a certain intensity, for a certain amount of time," says Lyons. "Like ingested medication, it's all about the dose."
Determining the best wavelength of light for phototherapy is a difficult task. Studies show that 670 nanometer (nm) and 830 nm light are beneficial, but 730 nm is not. The other difficult task is determining the appropriate dose and dose regimen for delivering the light.
Promising leads
Even more exciting is phototherapy's potential to improve a host of other degenerative diseases. Damaged mitochondria lead to a rise in destructive "free radicals," which play a key role in aging and cancer.
"It's why we try to put antioxidants into our diets," says Lyons, "to fight that process."
One source of free radicals comes from the inflammation caused by the body's immune response. The researchers have found that after an injury or illness triggers the immune response, NIR light resets the mitochondria so they function normally again.
"NIR reduces inflammation," says Eells. "If you can tone down the inflammation in an eye disease like retinitis pigmentosa, you slow the progression of the disease."
A similar observation with inflammation occurred in a study on recalcitrant bedsores, she adds. Wounds treated with phototherapy healed two and a half times more quickly than untreated wounds.
"Chronic non-healing wounds are 'stuck' in the inflammatory phase of wound healing" The light removes that obstacle," says Eells.
She has been working with Tim Kern at Case Western Reserve in treating an animal model of diabetic retinopathy with NIR light, which has been shown to slow progression and reduce the severity of the condition. Kern hopes to initiate a clinical trial in the near future.
A killer
NIR light heals by ensuring that cytochrome oxidase binds with oxygen to turn on protectors and stimulate cell metabolism. Blue light, on the other hand, causes a toxic environment when the immune response has been triggered. That poisonous effect hastens healing of topical wounds by killing bacteria that cause infection.
The question is, "What gives light in the longer wavelength its antibiotic effect?"
Enwemeka's studies suggest that blue light also acts on the mitochondrial enzyme site, but allows cytochrome oxidase to bind with nitric oxide, a free radical that is elevated in the immune response. It's a pairing that poisons the invader.
This theory is still unproven, but the therapy has achieved undeniable results in the lab with antibiotic-resistant MRSA. Enwemeka demonstrated that one dose of irradiation killed as much as 92 percent of two pervasive strains of MRSA.
He is working to improve that success rate by getting the light to penetrate deeper in order to finish off the few colonies that survive irradiation.
Limited availability
Enwemeka is leading a research effort in Brazil and at UWM that he hopes will ultimately lead to clinical use of NIR and blue light in the U.S. for the treatment of wounds.
In the six years since he was asked to test the effects of blue light on MRSA, he says, research on the topic has picked up. But currently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not sanctioned the use of blue light in treating wounds, or NIR light for conditions other than wounds and pain.
With so much success, why isn't phototherapy being used more widely?
"It's considered alternative therapy in Western medicine. It seems too simple for people to accept," says Lyons.
What the FDA is waiting for, says Enwemeka, is confirmation from a large-scale clinical study before approving phototherapy for a wider variety of ailments. It's something Enwemeka and Harry Whelan, a UWM alumnus and physician-researcher at the Medical College of Wisconsin, are determined to accomplish.
"To see people who have not had relief see their wounds heal and not return," says Enwemeka of the Brazilian patients who have benefited from therapy, "is very touching."
###
Additional study: Photobiomodulation Induced by 670 nm Light Ameliorates MOG35-55 Induced EAE in Female C57BL/6 Mice: A Role for Remediation of Nitrosative Stress
KA Muili, S Gopalakrishnan, JT Eells, JA Lyons
PLoS ONE 8(6): e67358. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0067358 [2013]
[
| E-mail
Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
PARIS -- French indie distributor BAC Films Distribution has been acquired by film financier and producer David Grumbach and a consortium of European investors.
Grumbach, who works under the Luxembourg-based Juliette Films and Paris-based Jaya Productions banners, recently produced AriFolman's Cannes entry The Congress.
Under the new structure, Grumbach will become CEO. Luxembourg-based financier Eric Chinchon will board as CFO and current managing director Mathieu Robinet will continue to oversee all acquisition, distribution, international sales and productions.
The sales team, headed by Gilles Sousa, will remain in place. They'll be taking a slate that includes PaoloVirzi's Human Capital and Helene Cattet and BrunoForzani's The Strange Color of Your Body's Tears to AFM in November.
Founded in 1986, BAC Films Distribution had been a subsidiary of the publicly traded BAC Majestic, with Paris-based animation house Millimages the majority shareholder since 2003. With the announcement of today's deal, BAC Majestic entirely cedes BAC Films Distribution and its back catalog to the new owners.
Since its founding in 1986, the company has distributed 8 Cannes Palme d'Or winners, including CristianMungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink.
Grumbach acquired the company with hopes to make the indie distributor into "a full-service European mini-major" that can house a film from beginning to end through development, financing, production and distribution.
In a statement, Grumbach said he is enthusiastic about combining BAC's team expertise with his experience in international production and financing and intends to maintain the same proactive, cooperative approach that has worked for him as a producer as BAC Films increases the scope of its activities.
FILE -This June 4, 2013 file photo shows Aurora theater shooting suspect James Holmes in court in Centennial, Colo. Prosecutors and defense attorneys in the Colorado theater shooting case are battling over what evidence can be admitted during Holmes’ murder trial, all in an attempt to build up or tear down the case that he was insane. On Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013 they are scheduled to argue over statements Holmes made to police after he was arrested after the July 2012 shootings and taken to a police station. (AP Photo/The Denver Post, Andy Cross, Pool, File)
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — James Holmes' lawyers say police coerced and misled him into discussing the bombs in his apartment after the Colorado theater shootings.
In a pretrial hearing Monday, defense lawyers said anything Holmes told officers shouldn't be used against him, arguing that police violated his rights.
Holmes pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to charges of killing 12 and injuring 70 in the 2012 attack in suburban Denver.
Prosecutors and the defense are arguing over evidence that could be used to support or undermine his insanity claim, such as the bombs that police have said were intricately planned to divert officers from the theater.
Prosecutors argue police did nothing wrong in questioning Holmes.
We all know why the chicken crossed the road. Now, a new product wants to make sure they get to the other side safely. As chickens become more popular as pets, the British company Omlet is selling high-visibility chicken jackets — tiny fluorescent safety vets for when they're on the streets.
We all know why the chicken crossed the road. A new product wants to make sure they get to the other side safely. As chickens become more popular as pets, British company Omlet is selling high-visibility chicken jackets; tiny fluorescent safety vets when they're out on the street. The jackets also protect the birds against rain and cold. But the website warns that owner should be sure to remove them before bedtime. They are not suitable as pajamas.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.
E-cigarettes are a booming business among smokers who want to light up indoors, smokers who want to quit and, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last month, among children.
And right now, e-cigarette-makers have a tremendous amount of latitude in the U.S. to market those products as they choose, even on television, where traditional cigarette ads have been banned since 1971.
That's because the Food and Drug Administration has not yet determined whether e-cigarettes, which deliver nicotine to the lungs through a battery-generated vapor rather than via tobacco smoke, should be considered tobacco products — with all the regulation that designation entails. The agency is expected to make its determination as early as this month.
In the meantime, "the marketing that you're seeing in these cigarettes now, it's the wild west," Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, tells NPR's Melissa Block on All Things Considered. "They're using celebrities, movies, television — it's just like getting into a time machine."
Perhaps some readers will remember those heady, hazy days, when TV was filled with ads touting cigarettes' health benefits, as the center of a refreshing set break for John Wayne — even as part of a wholesome breakfast:
Not surprisingly, today's e-cigarette ads look a lot slicker than their midcentury tobacco cousins. Actors Stephen Dorff and Jenny McCarthy crank up the sex appeal in their advertisements for Blu eCigs, owned by Lorillard, which manufactures Kent and Newport tobacco cigarettes. At the bar, McCarthy says, "I can whip out my Blu, and not worry about scaring that special someone away."
And FIN electronic cigarette's national television spot goes for a stylish smash-up of vintage and modern, complete with a retro-looking diner waitress.
Andries Verleur, co-founder of VMR Products, which makes V2 Cigs, told Bloomberg News that the industry does expect the FDA will eventually clamp down on e-cigarette advertising.
As Mitchell Zeller, director of the FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, told Shots, the jury's still out on the health effects of e-cigarettes. But, for now, as NJoy King put it in its TV ad that ran during the Super Bowl in February, "the most amazing thing about this cigarette is, it isn't one."
At least, not yet.
You can hear more about the e-cigarette industry in Melissa Block's story on Monday's All Things Considered.
Yes, it shares the same codename as NVIDIA's portable Android console, but Google's Project Shield has nothing to do with gaming -- it's all about helping the little guy. Created in response to a Google Ideas request -- a think tank that provides tech solutions for social issues -- made by Middle ...
We all have stories, as engineers, of fixing some crazy thing at the last minute right before the demo goes up. We have all encountered situations where we needed to fix something that was our fault and we needed to fix it now.
Linux Mint, an Ubuntu and Debian-based Linux distribution, has seen tremendous growth in community support and installed base in recent years. Since arriving on the scene in 2006 with its first release called "Ada," Mint has become the most popular FOSS operating system on DistroWatch.com, surpassing both Ubuntu and Debian themselves.
Mint is available with out-of-the-box multimedia support and now even has its own desktop interface, Cinnamon. Freelance writer Christopher von Eitzen interviewed Project Founder and Lead Developer Clement Lefebvre about Mint's origins, major changes to the distribution, its growth and its future.
What is your professional background and what was the first Linux distribution that you ever used?
I got a Masters in Computer Sciences from the University of South Paris in 2001. I was mostly interested in game development, but as it happened, I worked for banks, telecom and software companies in France and in Ireland. I had various job titles (web developer, IT engineer, software developer, J2EE architect), and in one company I was teaching rather than coding, but most of time my job was to design and to develop software or web applications.
My first distribution was Slackware. In 1997, if I remember well, a student at my university brought a shiny set of Wallnut Creek floppies. Everybody got excited at the idea of having a Unix system at home (we were developing on IBM AIX at the university). I got immediately hooked. Slackware was (and still is) a piece of art, clean, predictable... and it was also my first encounter with Free Software.
Very few people ran Linux back then. You had to own a "Sound Blaster" card for audio to work and it'd take a novice a week or two to get the mouse to work and achieve a good resolution with X11. And of course, there were very few applications available. Most users were university students, teachers, or developers with a serious taste for adventure and a strong immunity to discomfort. This, and the novelty of the Free Software ideas were very enlightening to me and I really enjoyed being part of this in the late 90s.
You launched the first release of Linux Mint, code-named "Ada", in 2006. What made you want to fork Ubuntu and create a new distribution? Why Ubuntu and why the name "Linux Mint"?
I was writing for http://linuxforums.org and I wanted to try and host some of my articles myself so I needed a domain name and I chose "linuxmint.com" (mostly because it was short, obviously related to Linux, and connoted the notion of freshness and technology which just works). That's how the name came initially, as a domain name for a Linux website.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans bought fewer existing homes in September than the previous month, held back by higher mortgage rates and rising prices.
The National Association of Realtors said Monday that sales of re-sold homes fell 1.9 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.29 million. That's down from a pace of 5.39 million in August, which was revised lower.
The sales pace in August equaled July's pace. Both were the highest in four years and are consistent with a healthy market.
Mortgage rates rose sharply over the summer from their historic lows, threatening to slow a housing recovery that began last year and has helped drive modest economic growth.
But many economists expect home sales will remain healthy, especially now that rates have stabilized and remain near historically low levels. Final sales in September reflected contracts signed in July and August, when rates were about a percentage point higher than in May.
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage was 4.28 percent last week, down from a two-year high of 4.58 percent in August. That's also far below the 30-year average of 7 percent, according to Bankrate.com.
Sales of existing homes have risen at a healthy 10.7 percent in the past 12 months. Still, that's the slowest year-over-year increase in five months.
And the median home price has risen 11.7 percent in the past year, the Realtors said. That's also the slowest annual gain in the past five months.
Price increases may be slowing because more homes are finally coming on the market. The supply of available homes rose 1.8 percent from a year ago to 2.21 million, the first year-over-year increase in 2 ½ years.
The limited number of homes for sale is a key reason prices have risen so fast in the last year.
The economy is growing modestly and employers are adding jobs at a slow but steady pace. That's helped a growing number of Americans buy homes.
Still, many first-time buyers have been unable to enter the market. They made up just 28 percent of purchases in September, down from 32 percent a year ago. In healthier housing markets, they typically make up at least 40 percent of buyers.
First-time buyers are having trouble qualifying for loans because many banks have adopted tougher lending restrictions and higher down payment requirements since the housing bubble burst. .
In their place, investors and Americans willing to pay cash are playing an outsize role in sales. Cash purchases made up 33 percent of September's sales, up from 28 percent a year ago.
Borrowing rates began to rise in May after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested that the Fed could start to slow its monthly bond purchases by the end of the year. The purchases are intended to keep interest rates low and stimulate the economy.
But the Fed decided against slowing its purchases at its September meeting, citing weak economic data and looming budget battles in Washington. The budget fights led to a partial government shutdown Oct. 1. The nation's borrowing limit was increased but only at the last minute. Economists have cut their forecasts for growth in the October-December quarter by about a half-percentage point because of the shutdown and debt limit fight.
As a result, many economists think the Fed won't slow its bond purchases until January or even later. That's likely to keep mortgage rates low well into the new year.
A National Park Service employee posts a sign on a barricade in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 1, the first day of the U.S. government shutdown.
A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 2. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 58 points, as the shutdown continued into its second day.
Children from a Head Start program in Washington, D.C., join supporters and members of Congress on Oct. 2 to call for an end to the shutdown and to fund the comprehensive education, health and nutrition service for low-income children and their families.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., speaks during a protest held by furloughed federal workers outside the Capitol on Oct. 4. The workers demanded an end to the lockout of federal employees caused by the government shutdown.
Veterans visit the World War II Memorial on Oct. 5. Several veterans' groups continued to make their pilgrimages to the war memorials despite the shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., center, accompanied by, from left, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., speaks to members of the media outside the West Wing of the White House on Oct. 10.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer holds a check for $426,500, presented to her by the town of Tusayan, Ariz., as partial payment to open Grand Canyon National Park. The National Park Service announced that it entered into an agreement with the state of Arizona that would allow the park to re-open and temporarily operate during the shutdown.
Jackson Blendowski, 6, peers up at the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor on Oct. 13. The Statue of Liberty reopened to the public after the state of New York agreed to shoulder the costs of running the site during the shutdown.
President Obama talks with children and adult volunteers at Martha's Table in Washington, D.C., on Monday. The non-profit organization helps low income and homeless families and many of the current volunteers are furloughed federal workers.
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is surrounded by reporters after leaving the office of Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Capitol Hill on Monday.
Members of the House of Representatives depart after a late-night vote on fiscal legislation to end the government shutdown on Wednesday. Congress approved an 11th-hour deal to end a partial government shutdown.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters /Landov
The budget fight that led to a partial federal government shutdown finally came to an end late Wednesday.
For 16 days, beginning at midnight on Oct. 1, hundreds of thousands of federal employees were told not to come to work. Museums, monuments, libraries and parks were closed across the country.
There were protests and anger from some furloughed workers, while others spent their time off volunteering for the needy. Some states sought to fill the void left by the shutdown by using their own funds to keep national parks and monuments like the Grand Canyon in Arizona and the Statue of Liberty in New York open and ready for tourists.
Here are some memorable images from the past two weeks.
Statin, osteoporosis drug combo may help treat parasitic infections
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 17-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
| Share
]
Contact: Silvia Moreno 706-542-4736 University of Georgia
Athens, Ga. Researchers at the University of Georgia have discovered that a combination of two commonly prescribed drugs used to treat high cholesterol and osteoporosis may serve as the foundation of a new treatment for toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection caused by the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii. They published their findings recently in PLOS Pathogens.
Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite capable of infecting nearly all warm-blooded animals. While healthy human adults usually suffer no lasting ill effects from infection, it can be harmful or fatal to unborn fetuses or those with weakened immune systems.
"For many years, therapies for toxoplasmosis have focused on drugs that target only the parasite," said Silvia Moreno, senior author of the article and professor of cellular biology in UGA's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. "But in this paper, we show how we can hit the parasite with two drugs simultaneously, one that affects body chemistry in the host and one that affects the parasite."
The UGA researchers discovered that a combination of the cholesterol lowering drug atorvastatin and osteoporosis medication zoledronic acid, both more commonly known by their respective trade names, Lipitor and Zometa, produce changes in the mammalian host and in the parasite that ultimately block parasite replication and spread of the infection.
"These two drugs have a strong synergy," said Moreno, who is also a member of UGA's Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases. "The mice we treated were cured from a lethal infection using this combination approach."
Moreno and her colleagues began working on this drug combination following a series of experiments with unexpected results. They created a genetically modified version of the parasite in the laboratory that lacked a specific enzyme essential for one of the organism's most basic functions.
They thought such an experiment was an excellent opportunity to observe how the absence of this enzyme would kill the parasites. But every time they checked on the supposedly defective parasites, they were healthy and appeared completely unaffected.
"We kept asking ourselves, 'How did this happen? This enzyme should be essential to the parasite's survival,'" said Zhu-Hong Li, a UGA research scientist and lead author of the article. "It's almost like a human surviving without food or air."
What they discovered is that in order to survive, Toxoplasma has evolved an extraordinary ability to siphon essential compounds from its host when it is unable to make them on its own. This led them to the two-drug therapy.
Zoledronic acid prevents synthesis in the parasite and atorvastatin inhibits production in the host.
When Toxoplasma cannot produce these important molecules itself or steal them from its host, the parasites die.
"These drugs have been studied extensively, they are FDA-approved and safe for most people," Moreno said. "Plus, one might not have to take the drugs for an extended period, just long enough to clear the infection."
Moreno cautions that more research must be done before this becomes an accepted treatment for humans, but she hopes that a similar strategy might work for other serious parasitic diseases, such as malaria and cryptosporidiosis.
Early experiments with an anti-malarial drug already suggest that combining atorvastatin with fosmidomycin, an antibiotic effective against malaria parasites, creates a more potent antimalarial cocktail and it may lessen the risk of drug resistance.
###
UGA Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases
The University of Georgia Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases draws on a strong foundation of parasitology, immunology, cellular and molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics to develop medical and public health interventions for at-risk populations. Established in 1998, the center promotes international biomedical research and educational programs at UGA and throughout Georgia to address the parasitic and other tropical diseases that continue to threaten the health of people throughout the world. For more information about the center, see ctegd.uga.edu
Writer:
James Hataway, 706-542-5222, jhataway@uga.edu
Contact:
Silvia Moreno, 706-542-4736, smoreno@uga.edu
[
| E-mail
| Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Statin, osteoporosis drug combo may help treat parasitic infections
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 17-Oct-2013
[
| E-mail
| Share
]
Contact: Silvia Moreno 706-542-4736 University of Georgia
Athens, Ga. Researchers at the University of Georgia have discovered that a combination of two commonly prescribed drugs used to treat high cholesterol and osteoporosis may serve as the foundation of a new treatment for toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection caused by the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii. They published their findings recently in PLOS Pathogens.
Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite capable of infecting nearly all warm-blooded animals. While healthy human adults usually suffer no lasting ill effects from infection, it can be harmful or fatal to unborn fetuses or those with weakened immune systems.
"For many years, therapies for toxoplasmosis have focused on drugs that target only the parasite," said Silvia Moreno, senior author of the article and professor of cellular biology in UGA's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. "But in this paper, we show how we can hit the parasite with two drugs simultaneously, one that affects body chemistry in the host and one that affects the parasite."
The UGA researchers discovered that a combination of the cholesterol lowering drug atorvastatin and osteoporosis medication zoledronic acid, both more commonly known by their respective trade names, Lipitor and Zometa, produce changes in the mammalian host and in the parasite that ultimately block parasite replication and spread of the infection.
"These two drugs have a strong synergy," said Moreno, who is also a member of UGA's Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases. "The mice we treated were cured from a lethal infection using this combination approach."
Moreno and her colleagues began working on this drug combination following a series of experiments with unexpected results. They created a genetically modified version of the parasite in the laboratory that lacked a specific enzyme essential for one of the organism's most basic functions.
They thought such an experiment was an excellent opportunity to observe how the absence of this enzyme would kill the parasites. But every time they checked on the supposedly defective parasites, they were healthy and appeared completely unaffected.
"We kept asking ourselves, 'How did this happen? This enzyme should be essential to the parasite's survival,'" said Zhu-Hong Li, a UGA research scientist and lead author of the article. "It's almost like a human surviving without food or air."
What they discovered is that in order to survive, Toxoplasma has evolved an extraordinary ability to siphon essential compounds from its host when it is unable to make them on its own. This led them to the two-drug therapy.
Zoledronic acid prevents synthesis in the parasite and atorvastatin inhibits production in the host.
When Toxoplasma cannot produce these important molecules itself or steal them from its host, the parasites die.
"These drugs have been studied extensively, they are FDA-approved and safe for most people," Moreno said. "Plus, one might not have to take the drugs for an extended period, just long enough to clear the infection."
Moreno cautions that more research must be done before this becomes an accepted treatment for humans, but she hopes that a similar strategy might work for other serious parasitic diseases, such as malaria and cryptosporidiosis.
Early experiments with an anti-malarial drug already suggest that combining atorvastatin with fosmidomycin, an antibiotic effective against malaria parasites, creates a more potent antimalarial cocktail and it may lessen the risk of drug resistance.
###
UGA Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases
The University of Georgia Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases draws on a strong foundation of parasitology, immunology, cellular and molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics to develop medical and public health interventions for at-risk populations. Established in 1998, the center promotes international biomedical research and educational programs at UGA and throughout Georgia to address the parasitic and other tropical diseases that continue to threaten the health of people throughout the world. For more information about the center, see ctegd.uga.edu
Writer:
James Hataway, 706-542-5222, jhataway@uga.edu
Contact:
Silvia Moreno, 706-542-4736, smoreno@uga.edu
[
| E-mail
| Share
]
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
![[ Back to EurekAlert! ]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tljBR_Vfvya_JK5SDOPBMlwV-Z4B4XLY3UmEa_mlS4V_2eCm9YzyifK1BKbKztqVc45cEIU4qrhU02X5iqlfQ0SRVxNliImBsgwbf4qFg=s0-d){kind=small}
Share
Yes, it shares the same codename as NVIDIA's portable Android console, but Google's Project Shield has nothing to do with gaming -- it's all about helping the little guy. Created in response to a Google Ideas request -- a think tank that provides tech solutions for social issues -- made by Middle ...
Source: 
Source: